Viral technology enters a new phase

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 64 KB
• Volume: 97
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0006-3592
• DOI: 10.1002/bit.21468

✦ Synopsis

Proteins can be solubilized in organic solvents using ionic and non-ionic surfactants, among other means, but what about larger biological species such as viruses? Solubilizing viruses in organic media would open the door to capsid modification chemistries not possible in water and may provide routes to stable vaccine formulations that can be stored and shipped in non-aqueous matrices without refrigeration. With these goals in mind, Johnson and coworkers solubilized the bacteriophage MS2 in several organic solvents by first dehydrating reverse micelles containing the virus through solvent evaporation and azeotropic drying, then resolubilizing the dried sample in a solvent of choice. The organic-solubilized virus was more thermostable in anhydrous isooctane than either its aqueous-solubilized or dried forms (remaining infectious after heating at 908C for 20 min) and was derivatized with stearic acid in chloroform as a model non-aqueous bioconjugation reaction. These results illustrate the feasibility of organic-solubilized viruses, and represent a new direction for extending biological systems beyond the confines of aqueous solution.